Fitness and Motivation during the Corona Crisis

All of us are feeling the upheaval caused by the current virus threat. Daily were hearing news of race cancellations, mountain closures, and ever-more restricted travel. We’ve received quite a few inquiries from our coached athletes and the Uphill Athlete audience in general about the frustration of having trained for months, or even years, for a big event that has now been cancelled.

As athletes who spent much of the time and focus on climbing, we know this situation well. We’ve spent countless years preparing for expeditions, only to not have weather and conditions not allow for an attempt.

What are you to do with all that banked fitness? Build on it!

Re-set expectations with a short-term process goal and look ahead to performing even better on your longer-term objective. For example, we have some athletes who are not running the Boston Marathon next month because it’s been postponed to September. They’ve decided to run the course for time as if it was still on, while still planning on running it in September, which they will surely do more quickly than they would have in April.

In short: Adjust and take the long view. Just like the literal storms of the mountains, the storm of Corona Virus will blow over, hopefully without any damage to you or your loved ones. You will want to return to training. So, maintaining a routine will help you both short and longer term. Just as there are many worthy mountains besides Everest, there are many worthy challenges and adventures besides major races. Whatever you do, don’t let your fitness gains go to waste just because a race you have targeted or foreign climbing trip has been cancelled.

Here are some things we find that helps us:

Get outside. If at all possible, get outside for your aerobic workouts. In some areas this may not be possible but for many others it might provide an excuse to get off the treadmill in the gym.

Move your strength training to home. Use our body weight exercises such as the Killer Core Routine, Box step ups or split squats are just some examples of body weight exercise that need minimal equipment. For added resistance load a backpack with books, rocks, or water bottles.

Gym-based ME. Our Gym Based ME workouts, which are explained near the end of this article, are well suited to doing at home with only a few simple props.

It is possible to do a substantial amount of training for rock climbing with nothing but a hang board at home. Here are a couple of resources on our site.